


And (Never) Brought to Mind

by myrtlebroadbelt



Category: Misfits (TV 2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Champagne, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 09:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20525621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrtlebroadbelt/pseuds/myrtlebroadbelt
Summary: It’s New Year’s Eve, and Kelly still has a curfew.Nathan offers to keep her company.





	And (Never) Brought to Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing in the Christmas special happened, except Nathan’s Santa outfit.

The sun was beginning to set on New Year’s Eve when Kelly arrived home from litter-picking. It was pointless, if you asked her — like making your bed only to get back into it five minutes later. Or in this case, throw rubbish all over it.

As she was hanging up her jacket and dreading tomorrow’s shift, her phone rang. It was Nathan.

“I hate this,” he said before she even had a chance to greet him.

“Is it worse than Santa?” Kelly asked, trying to unwind her scarf one-handed.

“Way worse. People are already drunk. It makes them meaner.”

“What are you wearing?” 

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was_ that _sort of call.”

She rolled her eyes, even though he couldn’t see her. “You know what I mean.”

“Well, I thought it’d be funny if I wore a nappy — you know, like Baby New Year? But they told me I’d freeze to death. So I said that’d be fine, as long as they paid me extra for it. They thought I was joking, so now I’m wearing a party hat and blowing into this thing.”

Kelly heard the crinkly toot of a party horn and covered her mouth to hide her laughter.

“Oi!” Nathan shouted, and Kelly lifted the phone away from her ear. “Just take this, all right? I gotta hand them all out before midnight or I turn into a pumpkin!”

She distantly heard someone tell Nathan to fuck off. He blew into the party horn again, more aggressively this time. 

“Anyway,” he said with a sigh, "are we going to this party tonight, or what? I get in free for my labor, and I could probably get you in, too.”

“Can’t. Got my curfew.”

“Seriously? You still have that thing?”

“Just ‘til next week," Kelly said, sitting down on the sofa and glaring at her ankle tag.

“So what are you gonna do?”

“Stay in. Watch telly.”

Nathan paused for a moment, then asked, “You want some company?”

“What, you wanna spend New Year’s Eve watching telly with me?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

Kelly smiled. He could be sweet when he wasn’t being a total wanker.

“All right,” she said. “Thanks.”

“What time should I come round?”

“Eight. That’s when my mum’s going out.”

“Ah, I see,” Nathan said, and she could hear his grin. “Don’t want your mum there when I’m over, eh? Looking for a little —”

Kelly hung up on him. 

When she answered the door later that night, Nathan was standing on the other side wearing a plastic top hat and holding the aforementioned party horn between his teeth like a cigar. He blew into it and held up a bottle of champagne. 

“I brought a cup of kindness!”

“Did you steal it?”

“No,” he said, offended. Then, a second later, “All right, yes. But it’s been in the kitchen for months, already opened. Who wants flat champagne?”

“Us, apparently,” Kelly said, moving aside to let him in.

_She looks cute_, Nathan thought as he brushed past her. 

Kelly glanced down at her flannel shirt and tracksuit bottoms. “I look like shit.”

“Hey, I didn’t even mean for you to hear that, so you know it’s true,” Nathan said, removing his hat and jacket and collapsing on the sofa. He immediately pulled the stopper out of the champagne bottle and lifted it to his mouth.

“What are you doing?” Kelly asked.

Nathan paused. “Drinking champagne?”

“You’re not supposed to drink it now. You’re supposed to drink it at midnight.”

“Says who?”

“Um, everybody?” 

“Fine.” He set the bottle on the coffee table. “You’re the boss.”

Kelly grabbed it to put in the fridge.

“So, what do you wanna do?” Nathan called after her. “I brought a deck of cards. I could show you a magic trick I’ve been practicing. I was thinking I’d try out for _Britain’s Got Talent_.”

“Maybe later,” Kelly said, emerging from the kitchen with two plates. “I made chicken nuggets.”

_Marry me_, Nathan thought. When he took his first bite, he said it out loud.

Kelly just smiled and turned on the television.

**8:25 pm**

“What’s your New Year’s resolution?”

“Haven’t got one.”

“Wanna guess what mine is?”

“To wank off more. You already told me.”

“Oh, right.”

**9:03 pm**

“What the fuck are we watching?”

“I don’t know, you put it on.”

“Is that the guy from that thing? You know the one. With the hair.”

“Yeah, I know exactly who you mean.”

“You do?”

“No, dickhead.”

**9:40 pm**

“Cut it out.”

“What?”

“That song’s been in your head since before Christmas. It’s driving me nuts.”

“What, you think I _want _the piña colada song stuck in my head?”

**10:17 pm**

“Is this your card?”

“Nope.”

“Right, of course not. Because _this _is your card.”

“Nope.”

“Whatever. _Britain’s Got Talent _is bullshit, anyway. Susan Boyle didn’t even win.”

**10:46 pm**

“Hey, listen to this punk rock version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ I found.”

“Ew, I’m not putting that in my ear. There’s gunk on it.”

“It’s just earwax.”

“Yeah, and I don’t want it in my ear.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not like I have any _earborne _diseases. Ha, get it?”

“If you stick that in my ear, you’re gonna get a slap.”

**10:55 pm**

“Can we drink the champagne now?”

“It’s not even eleven.”

“It’s midnight in China. Way past midnight.”

“We’re not in China.”

“Time’s an illusion, you know.”

**11:12 pm**

“I’m hungry.”

“What do you want?”

“You got any Christmas chocolate left?”

“Yeah, tin’s over there.”

“Ugh, Quality Street? Really?”

“Don’t even start.”

**11:34 pm**

“Bet you wish you were getting wasted at that party right now.”

“Nah, this is way more fun.”

“Psh, sure it is.”

“I mean it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

With a few minutes to midnight, they were slumped on the sofa with a pile of chocolate wrappers between them. Nathan was trying to blow into the party horn with his nose, and having far more luck with the left nostril. Kelly was calculating how many hours of sleep she could get before she had to be up for work in the morning.

“Start popping the champagne,” the BBC presenter reminded them. “And make sure you’ve got someone to kiss when the clock strikes midnight.”

Nathan’s panicked internal voice cut through the sound of the cheering TV crowd.

_Oh shit, I forgot about the kissing thing. _

Kelly didn’t react. She had gotten better at hiding when she could hear his thoughts — and Nathan had somehow gotten even worse at remembering that was her power.

_Should I kiss her? Would that be weird? Maybe just a peck, for tradition’s sake. Nah, she’d probably punch me in the face. _

Glancing out of the corner of her eye, Kelly saw him furrowing his brow and chewing his lip.

_Unless she _expects _me to kiss her.__ Does she? No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous. Ah fuck, now I'm just thinking about kissing her._

This last thought was accompanied by a dreamy, echoey sigh.

_No. Stop that. Focus. Come up with a game plan here. What do mates who’ve fingered each other do in this situation? Well, we didn’t finger _each other_. I fingered her. Jesus, this is weird. _

Kelly tried very hard not to turn her head, but she was pretty sure Nathan had started literally pulling his hair out.

_Maybe I’ll just kiss her on the cheek. Yeah. That’ll work. A happy medium. Nice and respectful. Chivalrous, even. And I'll be really obvious about my trajectory, so she won't get the wrong impression. Yeah. Okay. This is okay. We're okay._

“I’ll go get the champagne,” Kelly said, standing up to go into the kitchen. 

It was mostly an excuse to finally let go of the smile she had been holding back for the entirety of Nathan's monologue.

Obviously she knew he still fancied her — he thought about it all the time. It had freaked her out at first, but she found that she didn’t mind it so much these days. She certainly preferred it to hearing the piña colada song for the millionth time. And she would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy peeking behind the cocksure curtain to hear just how flustered he could get.

One might even say it was cute. Kelly wouldn't, of course. But she probably wouldn't disagree if someone else said it.

Truth be told, she had also forgotten about the kissing thing. She had never spent New Year’s Eve alone with a bloke she wasn’t shagging, so she wasn’t too sure about the protocol. What _were _they supposed to do?

“Where’d you go? It’s nearly midnight,” Nathan called, and Kelly realized she had been standing in front of the open fridge for God knows how long.

Shivering, she grabbed the champagne bottle and took two drinking glasses out of the cupboard. When she returned to the sofa, the countdown was starting.

Ten, nine, eight ...

Kelly hurried to pour the champagne, which had absolutely no bubbles left. She handed one of the glasses to Nathan and raised her own.

… three, two, one ...

“Happy New Year,” Nathan said, clearly still preoccupied.

They clinked their glasses, downed the champagne, and put on matching grimaces. Fuck, that was flatter than flat.

On the television, Big Ben was chiming away beneath the pop of fireworks. Kelly and Nathan lowered their glasses and stared at each other. 

_Okay, just on the cheek_, Nathan thought with a deep breath.

He leaned forward, bracing himself with one hand on the back of the sofa and angling his head so far to one side that it looked like he was aiming for her ear. Kelly sat perfectly still until Nathan’s face was an inch away from hers, at which point she turned and pressed her lips to his. She actually heard him gasp in his head.

Kelly lingered there for a few seconds, resting her hand lightly on his arm. Nathan, meanwhile, was too surprised to move. When she pulled away, his lips stayed puckered for a moment, and his eyes fluttered open like some girl in a romantic movie.

“Happy New Year,” Kelly said, sitting back with a smirk.

Nathan blinked a few more times, then let out an awkward laugh and moved back to his own side of the sofa. He cleared his throat and went to take another sip from his glass before realizing it was empty. He put it back on the coffee table and fidgeted with his jumper.

They sat there watching the fireworks and not talking. Nathan, however, couldn’t stop thinking. 

_Is she taking the piss? Was that a friend kiss, or a ‘Let’s shag’ kiss? Fuck, that was nice. Now I just wanna do it again. But that would be weird. Right? Wouldn’t it? She would have kept going if it meant anything. Wouldn't she? Should I ask her? No, I’ll look like an idiot. Oh shit, she can’t hear me, can she?_

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Kelly said, and kissed him again.

So maybe she did have a New Year’s resolution after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I rewatch When Harry Met Sally.
> 
> Kelly’s curfew probably didn’t last that long, but shhh let me have this.
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](https://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com/).


End file.
